


In a World Like That (we can wish for each other's happiness)

by sapphireswimming



Series: Aces [6]
Category: Gundam 00
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Gen Work, Gundam 00 Week 2018, One Shot, Ptolemy (Gundam 00), slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:41:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphireswimming/pseuds/sapphireswimming
Summary: Allelujah has hoped for a way to talk to Soma Pieres for a very long time
Relationships: Allelujah Haptism & Soma Peries
Series: Aces [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1957048
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	In a World Like That (we can wish for each other's happiness)

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13734323/1/
> 
> Written for Gundam 00 Week 2018 Day 6: Qualia
> 
> Title from the Gundam 00 insert song _Qualia_ by UVERworld
> 
> No warnings, spoilers for Allelujah and Soma backstory
> 
> Thanks to [Laora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laora/pseuds/Laora) for some Allelujah headcanons that appear in their fic [Apostasy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10527255) and some of our unpublished fic notes

Chris almost didn't hear the tentative knock on the door. She sat up and pulled her headphones off, calling out, "Just a minute!" before extricating herself from the extra blanket she'd been using as a cape.

She punched in the controls to open the door and it hissed open to reveal, not Feldt like she'd expected, but Allelujah instead.

"Oh!" she said, pulling the bangs back and away from her face as she blinked at him.

Allelujah fumbled a bit, his eyes darting around the hallway as he apologized. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to bother you if you were busy…"

"No, I—" she shook her head. "I wasn't busy at all. What can I do for you?"

His arms were crossed over his chest and both hands squeezed into the opposite bicep until the knuckles were white. "I can come back another time," he said, inching backward.

"No, no!" Chris said, stretching out a hand. "Now's great!" She smiled gently and stepped out of the doorway, further into her room, waving him inside. "Now's fine," she assured him again, "Come on in."

He hesitated another moment in the hallway, looking up and down the corridors before taking a deep breath and entering.

"So how are you doing?" she asked, reaching down to quickly smooth the covers and move her terminal and headphones to the other side of the room.

"Me?" Allelujah looked surprised at the question. "Oh, I'm fine. You?" he deflected quickly, grey eye flickering up to meet hers for a moment.

"I'm good," she smiled, sitting down on the bed and patting beside her for him to take a seat as well.

He spun in surprise as the door automatically hissed shut behind him.

Chris smiled again as he turned back and said, "You want to have a seat?"

Allelujah nodded and pulled out the chair by her desk, sitting on it to see her at an angle. He sat and didn't do anything else for a bit, glancing back down to the fingers twisting in his lap.

"Hey," she said softly, and he immediately stopped moving them, pulling his fingers into fists instead.

"I _want_ to—" he whispered sharply before breaking off. He looked up at Chris in alarm.

She smiled at him.

"What do you want to do?" she asked lightly.

Relaxing a fraction, he took a deep breath, and then another. She waited for him to talk.

"You sent in a couple questions, didn't you?" he asked.

She canted her head and wondered what he was talking about until he continued, "To the show, for the Aces."

"Oh!" she said with dawning understanding. "Yeah, yeah I did." She rubbed the back of her neck as her cheeks flushed. "Yeah, Miss Sumeragi wasn't too thrilled about that," she chuckled nervously.

Allelujah's face fell.

Chris resisted the urge to grimace and leaned forward instead. "Why, why do you ask?"

"I was… wondering if you could send in a question for me," he said slowly, and she blinked in surprise.

"Or show me how to do it, if that's easier for you. It's fine if you can't. I understand. I was just hoping that since," he hitched a shoulder, "you know since you…" he trailed off.

"Yeah, yeah, I can send one in for you," she said. "Of course, I can send one in for you. It's not a problem at all! Just as long as we don't tell Tieria," she laughed.

"Well, there's so chance of that," Allelujah muttered. "But are you sure?"

"Yeah," she waved her hand and reached across the bed for her terminal again. "Not… a problem," she said, pulling up a couple concurrent windows onto her screen as her thumbs flew across the keyboard. "I already set up a super secure connection before when I submitted my questions to the site. It'll be super easy to," she pressed a few more buttons, "pull it right back up again!" she said triumphantly as she settled back against the wall and held the terminal out in front of her.

"Alright, we are ready!" she announced as she got comfortable.

"Already?" Allelujah asked in surprise, sitting up straighter in his chair.

"Yup," she beamed, looking over at him. "So, who would you like to send a question to?"

"To M—" he broke off, clearing his throat. "Uh, to Soma Pieres," he said, carefully enunciating the name.

Chris raised an eyebrow as she navigated through the site to pull open the right page. "The HRL Ace, huh?" she asked. "That's the machine that's been giving you so much trouble, isn't it?" she asked, a bit more softly.

"Hmm?" Allelujah looked up again and shook his head slightly as if to clear it. "Uh, yeah, yeah, that's the one," he said.

She pursed her lips, but clicked on the link to submit a new question. "Okay, then. Well, I'm in so you can ask her anything you want, now. At least," she amended with a laugh, "anything that won't give us away. I mean, they're pretty sure that we're watching but there's no need to actually go ahead and confirm that for them, is there?" she asked tentatively.

Allelujah shook his head. "Yeah, I know," he gave her a wan smile. "It's nothing, nothing like that."

"Okay, well," she pulled the blanket over her feet again until it was bunched in her lap. "I'm ready whenever you are, then."

His lips pressed into a thin line. "I wanted—" he began.

She didn't say anything as both hands wrapped around the edges of the chair in an iron grip.

"I wanted to ask," he tried before stopping again.

Chris watched Allelujah, hidden behind the fringe of hair that always covered his face. "Yes?" she finally prompted.

"I wanted to ask if she was happy," he blurted, looking her straight in the eye. A moment later, his cheeks began to flush. "I mean—" he tried to explain, "If she liked what she was doing. In the military. Or if she'd rather… do something else… I wanted to know if she was happy," he whispered.

Chris' face fell as she watched him hunch in on himself. "Okay," she said, clearing her throat and intentionally making her voice as light and bright as possible. "Okay, we can ask that," she continued gently, beginning to tap at the screen.

"Dear Soma Pieres," she began, hesitating only for a moment at the strangeness of what they were doing. "Are you happy with your job?" she said out loud, keeping one eye on Allelujah to see if he didn't like it. "Do you like what you do?" she continued slowly as she typed. "What's it like being the Ace of the HRL? Do you enjoy being in the military? Did you ever imagine that you would be doing something else with your life instead?"

Allelujah had begun nodding along slightly.

"Is something like that okay?" Chris asked. "I tried wording it like a curious civilian. That way they might actually read it. Because they must get millions of these things. But I think that might be okay? And I think it still asks what you want?" She paused. "What do you think?"

"Yeah," he breathed. "That should be…" he took a deep breath, "good. Thanks," he said.

"Of course," Chris said. Then leaned forward, the terminal tapping against her knee. "You still need to add a name to the bottom. How do you want to sign off on it?"

Allelujah's brow furrowed.

"Who do you want to be?" Chris wondered aloud. "I assume you want to pick the HRL?"

He nodded – Aces were more likely to be asked questions from someone in their own bloc, and besides, it was true, as far as it went.

"Alright, now you just have to pick a name."

Allujah hesitated. Much as he might have wanted to, he couldn't choose his own name, for obvious security reasons. But he was realizing that he knew very few other people. He couldn't choose anyone else in Celestial Being, and the kids at the Super Human Institute only had numerical designations. Except for those who escaped with him on the shuttle and named themselves – things like _Pillow_ and _Sunrise_ , for the things they liked best— and he forced their faces away before Hallelujah found an opening to say a word.

He thought instead of the kids he met in Russia, who flocked around him on the streets because he had been able to protect them. There was Veta, who clung onto his pant legs, and Pavel who wore a scarf so long he seemed to disappear behind it—

"Pavel," he said, quickly, before Hallelujah could say anything.

Chris nodded as she typed it in. "Nice, Pavel is good. I'll just put that in here," she tapped the keyboard a few more times. "And your question is all good to go, Pavel from the HRL."

Allelujah looked up and gave her a tentative smile.

She returned it. "Let's just hope they ask her one of these days!"

Allelujah's gaze dropped to the floor again, and he smiled a little to himself as he stood to go. Chris clambered out of her bed and tapped the keypad to let him out.

As he disappeared down the hallway, she stared after him, and thought again how remarkable a person Allelujah was, that he would smile considering his sworn enemy's happiness.


End file.
